The struggle for Black actors to achieve prominent roles in Hollywood is real. And apparently, even actress like Zoe Kravitz, who has managed to land roles in Divergent, Dope and Mad Max: Fury Road, has issues with constantly being pigeonholed. In a recent interview with the Associated Press, Kravitz expressed her opinions on Black women always offered stereotypical roles as opposed to the lead role.
“People have tried to do that to me over and over again and I’ve been fighting it and fighting it,” she says. “I would get auditions and it would be like ‘they want you to play the best friend.’ And it’s like ‘why can’t I audition for the lead?’ Then it’ll be like ‘OK now you’re the quirky black girl,’ or ‘now you’re a hippie.’ I can play all kinds of people. I don’t have to play myself.”
You’ll Never Guess The Height of Zoe Kravitz’s Top Knot
The good news? Kravitz is excited to find conversations about increasing diversity in Hollywood becoming mainstream. But, there’s work to be done. She believes the more we have open dialogues, the sooner we can create scripts for ourselves.
“I love the fact that there’s such an open dialogue right now about women in Hollywood and black women and black men in Hollywood and everything in between,” says Kravitz. “Now it’s about us bringing the change. We started the dialogue but I don’t expect any man to write a script that speaks for me. I don’t expect any man to write a script for me. I think we need to do that. If we want to be represented properly in Hollywood, let’s represent ourselves properly in Hollywood.”